Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an actuator, and more particularly, to a high speed actuator for actively controlling stiffness.
Discussion of the Related Art
Through recent research, smart materials have been applied to various issues for the active or passive control of structures. Examples of such smart materials include shape memory alloys (SMAs), piezoelectric elements, electro-active polymers, etc. The smart materials may be directly attached to a structure or may be inserted into another material to thereby be used in the formed of actuators.
The actuators may implement an operation such as bending or twisting, and the operation such as bending or twisting may be applied to implement a flapping actuator. Therefore, actuators based on smart materials may be applied to various fields such as toys for children, robots, flexible devices, and other home or industrial equipment.
Although a method of implementing a bending or twisting operation using such actuators has been disclosed, a method of controlling a speed of the actuators is not known. For this reason, in the related art, there is a limitation in implementing high speed actuators in terms of structures or materials.